APOD 1.8

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101020.html

This is a picture of Venus in the sky caught over 44 nights. The hilarious writers over at NASA tell us that the difference between Venus and an airplane is that an airplane will move in a few moments. From the first link I learned the totally unrelated fact that white holes exist, but not physically, only as mathematical constructs when you remove the star that created the black hole in the first place. Venus shifts its position each night, making it a bit more difficult to track. This picture was taken in Turkey. Venus is colloquially called 'the evening star' when it appears in the west. The ancient Greeks called it Hesperus. This month mars also appears near the horizon.

APOD 1.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101009.html

Globular Star Cluster NGC 6934

 This spherical collection of stars orbit a galactic core as satellites, bound purely by gravity, there is a high stellar density for the cluster. The clusters have different classes. It is located around the halo of the Milky Way. Globular clusters can be used as points of distance referance. Also, they are some of the oldest stars in the sky. The ages of the stars constrain the ages of the universe, so we know how old it can be. This cluster is in Delphinus.  51.2 kly away from the sun. William Herschel discovered globular cluster NGC 6934 in Delphinus on September 24, 1785 and cataloged it as H I.103.This particular cluster is estimated to be 1,000,018,176 years old.

Micheal Mastlin Biography

            Micheal Mästlin was born, the middle child to Jakob Mästlin and Dorothea Simon, on September 30, 1550 in Göppingen, Germany. His parents were very Lutheran, and thusly so was he. He was an attendee of a monastic school for his first years of education. Then he attended Tübingen University in 1568 when he had completed his basic studies. He received both his BA and MA in mathematics and astronomy at Tübingen. He studied under Professor of Mathematics Philip Apian, eventually becoming his assistant. After achieving his MA, Micheal achieved many feats; this period could be considered the height of his career. In 1571, right when he go his MA, he edited a new edition of Prutenis Tables .His 1573 essay on 1572 hena meteoroid was printed in its entirety in Tycho Brahe’s Progymnasmata. Micheal also explained Earthshine for the first time ever in print. In 1576 he became a deacon after finishing his theology studies at Tübingen. In 1577 he married Margarete Gruuninger with whom he had 6 children, Margarete dying in labor on the sixth. He then married Margarete Burkhardt, and had eight children with her. Mästlin is famous for his observations of the comet of 1577, observed while he was in Backnangas called Observatio et demonstratio cometae aetherae qui anno 1577 et 1578 constitutus in sphaera Veneris apparuit cum admirandius eius passionibus varietate scilicet motus loco orbe distantia a terro centro etc. adhibitis demonstrationibus geometricis et calculo arithmetico cuius modi de alio quoquam cometa nunquam visa est(1578). It was praised for its accuracy and detail (and most certainly not for its brevity). Mastlin was the first to compute the orbit of a comet. The method was a bit iffy, but he was the first; he used this as support of the Copernican system. He also showed the comet was further away from the moon. Micheal, a great expert on spherical trigonometry, became professor of mathematics at University of Heidelberg in 1580; there he published his intro to astronomy text, Epitome of Astronomy. Oddly enough, the textbook followed a geocentric model as opposed to a Copernican one. Mastlin taught Keplar, another famous astronomer while at the University. Four years later he returned to Tübingen for the remainder of his career/life. Mastlin lived to see the invention of the telescope and owned two in his lifetime, which he used to make observations until he was 78. Micheal died on October 20, 1631 in Tübingen, 50 km west of where he was born.

Observations

Time: 8:11
Location: Mi casa

The moon was waxing crescent, and looked very 3D. It was pretty cool. Also saw the summer triangle. Took awhile to figure out which vertex was which, but when I used the telescope was applied I could see the fainter stars around and identify which constellation was which. Saw Sagittarius, was very happy, was like 'kaboom kaboom!'. The trees blocked out a lot of the view, and it was pretty light outside, so only alpha and beta stars were visible sans the cheapie telescope.

APOD 1.6

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101003.html

Discovered by Galileo, Jupiter's moon, Io, is shown here in true color. Nasa's Galileo satellite captured the image with filters to approximate what the human eye would see. Volcanic activities cause a lot of the color variations (mostly the sulfur that comes from them). Other color variations come from molten silicate rock, which is one of two types of common minerals. The silicate mineral group have oxygen and silica as their basis. Io is covered in lava every few years and is very volcanically active. Jupiter provides a lot of tidal gravity/force, stretching Io. Some of the lava is so hot it glows in the dark.

Observations

Last night was my first Astronomy night!

We observed the crescent Venus through the telescope, which was really cool. It was the first planet I have ever seen have phases. The part that was not in the shadow was bright glowing yellow, which was similar to the sun, but more white-goldish. We also saw the Hubble satellite! It was only there for a short streak across the sky before it went into the Earth's shadow. In the telescope, I saw the moons of Jupiter in a straight line, then observed the position change over the next hour, where there was a shift and the moons looked further from the planet (they were one diameter at the start, but then moved farther away). We also observed M7 in the telescope, which was a globular cluster; it kinda looked like an octopus. Other then that, the cool green laser was used to point out many of the summer stars and constellations. I hadn't really been able to observe such a large amount at the same time since there is a bad horizon at my house because of all of the trees. We also saw Vega, Polaris, Anteres, and Altair. I'm excited for the next one!

APOD 1.5

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100927.html

The natural light displays on Saturn(♄). have been a mystery of Scooby-Doo-like proportions until recently. The composition of Saturn is a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen compounds, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and an outer gaseous layer. Saturn also has 9 rings. So back to the mystery. The spacecraft Cassini-Huygens (currently 1150008km from Saturn as of now) has taken hundreds of infared images of Saturn for other purposes. The strange auroras of Saturn change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet rotates; they also change with the magnetism of the planet. The false-color image above shows blue reflected sunlight, whilst itself glows red. The purpose of these images is to maybe understand Earth's own auroras a little more.

Le Citations de Micheal Mastlin

C. Gillespie, editor. "Dictionary of Science." Charles Cribner's Son, 1981.

O'Connor, JJ and Robertson, E.F. "Micheal Mastlin." School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of St Andrews, Scotland. 2008. <http://turnbull.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Mastlin.html>

Winnecke, A. "On the Visibility of Stars in the Pleiades to the Naked Eye." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.146. <http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1878MNRAS..39..146W>